Small Perturbationhttp://www.smallperturbation.com
enRescuing GNU Talkfiltershttp://www.smallperturbation.com/gnu-talkfilters
<p>Arch Linux recently produced a list of packages that cannot be built from source because of broken URLs. I had received messages like this before, and usually they simply indicate that the website for a package has changed. This happened a lot, for example, in 2016 when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Code">Google Code</a> was shut down and replaced with a raw <a href="https://code.google.com/archive/">archive of project snapshots</a>. So I expected that I would only have to do a little bit of searching when the notification came for GNU Talkfilters.</p>
<p>Instead, I could not find any up-to-date sites hosting the source. Every post about it still pointed to the <a href="http://www.hyperrealm.com/talkfilters/talkfilters.html">old site</a> with links that lead to 404 errors. It started to look like talkfilters had disappeared from the web. This is unacceptable for any free software project, especially one that ostensibly bears the "GNU" distinction. Because I had compiled the program on my own machine years ago, I was lucky enough to still have a copy of the source lying around. I promptly uploaded it to <a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/sites/default/files/talkfilters-2.3.8.tar.gz">this very site</a> and updated the <a href="https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/community.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/talkfilters&amp;id=279a752d11823ce45f5d1bc8f6387b4465763d0a">Arch package accordingly</a>. As a result, the crisis has been averted and free software users with nothing better to do are still free to apply chat filtering rules like this:<br />
<kbd><br />
$ echo "Welcome friends, to a new home for GNU talkfilters!" | pirate<br />
Welcome crew, t' a new home fer GNU talkfilters! Shiver me timbers!<br />
</kbd></p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/gnu-talkfilters" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/gnu-talkfilters#commentsantiquesdevelmemesnerd humourTue, 26 Dec 2017 22:53:18 +0000root52 at http://www.smallperturbation.comI Have Yet To See A 2017 Filmhttp://www.smallperturbation.com/seen-few-movies
<p>It occurred to me recently that the last time I bought a movie ticket was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_One">four months ago</a>. After going through a chronological list of major film releases, I am pretty sure that I have not gone this long between movies since 2012. Here are the release months for films that I saw in various years. The maximum span here seems to be three.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>2016:</b> February, April, June, July, September, November, December</li>
<li><b>2015:</b> February, March, April, May, September, December</li>
<li><b>2014:</b> January, February, March, April, May, August, October, December</li>
<li><b>2013:</b> April, May, June, August, October, November, December</li>
</ul>
<p>An obvious problem with this list is that it is easy to watch a film one or two months after its release. If this had happened with the April 2013 film for example, then that would be an example of another four month gap. However, in this case, I happen to remember that I saw <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man_3">Iron Man 3</a></i> right when it came out. Another shortcoming is that the list omits movies that I saw in airplanes, people's houses or rented out venues. The latter type of cinema is something I have actually attended multiple times in 2017.</p>
<p>Four months instead of three is not much of an outlier. So I cannot really say whether this marks a sudden change in my interests. However, I can certainly mention two movies that I actively avoided.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/seen-few-movies" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/seen-few-movies#commentsold newstoo much informationThu, 20 Apr 2017 05:23:18 +0000root51 at http://www.smallperturbation.comHacking Conference Officeshttp://www.smallperturbation.com/ggi-offices
<p>I am writing this from Florence during the most exciting trip I've been able to take as a part of grad school. I was fortunate enough that a <a href="http://www.ggi.fi.infn.it/index.php?page=workshops.inc&amp;id=209">7 week workshop</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_field_theory">conformal field theory</a> that made a lot of sense for me to attend, chose a beautiful city in a country I had yet to visit. Travelling to surrounding areas will be reserved for the weekends. On weekdays there is a chance to be really productive because the other students and I are surrounded by very intense people.</p>
<p>When we're not talking to these professors and postdocs who have decent offices, the main place for us to work is a room with a window and a twelve seat table. This is not bad because there are usually only six people sitting there. However, this is not guaranteed to stay the case. If one looks at the <a href="http://www.ggi.fi.infn.it/eventfiles/participants/part209.pdf">participant list</a>, there could easily be days when all of the seats fill up. This is where there is room to game the system and I am happy to say that it only required a few lines of code.<br />
<center><img src="/sites/default/files/post_images/2016-05-29_florence.jpg" width="600" alt="A view of Florence" /></center></p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/ggi-offices" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/ggi-offices#commentsprankstuning performanceSun, 29 May 2016 09:25:15 +0000root50 at http://www.smallperturbation.comTime To Use Open Access Alreadyhttp://www.smallperturbation.com/open-access
<p>Plenty of high school discussions are easily forgotten, but I was just reminded of one from 2007. A bunch of us knew we would soon be taking science courses in university, but we were asking whether it was best to stay in the field or move onto something more applied. One thing I said was "I will keep doing research as long as I can put all my articles online for free." A friend of mine who has always been very well informed replied with "don't count on that." At the time, it was not clear whether a scientific career could reasonably follow that philosophy. But now I am thankful to say that it can. <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129993">The friend I mentioned</a> and I are both contributing papers to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Access">Open Access</a> repositories and millions of people have joined this movement in recent years.</p>
<p>Last month, my campus had <a href="http://library.stonybrook.edu/scholarly-communication/oa-prelec-2015/">a symposium</a> on some of the Open Access efforts happening in the surrounding area. I signed up as soon as I saw that it was kicking off with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy:_The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz">a documentary</a> on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz">Aaron Swartz</a>. When people there heard that I was one of the school's physicists, they applauded us for being early adopters. This is a clear reference to the <a href="http://arxiv.org/">arXiv</a> &mdash; the primary source for everyone in my field, which has turned publication into a pure formality. I cannot really imagine only learning what an author has been up to after peer review has finished. Another physics success story (ranked surprisingly highly for something I only learned about two years ago) is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Reviews_in_Relativity">Living Reviews in Relativity</a>.</p>
<p>But of course the talks did more than just suck up to these projects and bash Republicans. They taught me a few things about the journal ecosystem including areas where physics is no longer in the lead.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/open-access" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/open-access#commentsgratitudepublic healthFri, 27 Nov 2015 08:26:50 +0000root49 at http://www.smallperturbation.comA Few Lifehackshttp://www.smallperturbation.com/lifehacks
<p>There might be other people like me who get nothing out of forecasted temperatures like 21°C, 28°C or 35°C. Do I look at weather often enough to know what 28°C feels like? Of course not. The temperatures I really want to see are relative ones: 2 degrees warmer than yesterday, 6 degrees colder than last Thursday and so on. The problem is that most weather sites blindly assume that future dates are the only interesting ones. They completely erase past dates that you could use for points of comparison. So I went looking for a site that "back-casted" and found <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/">Weather Underground</a>. This is a site that I will return to because it has archives of temperatures for many locations. This got me thinking about other hackish things that I do. Maybe someone will find these useful.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/lifehacks" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/lifehacks#commentsgratitudetuning performanceMon, 08 Jun 2015 03:34:44 +0000root48 at http://www.smallperturbation.comPodcast Cameohttp://www.smallperturbation.com/pan-vs-bi
<p>There's a "podcast" I listen to called <i><a href="http://thebiggestproblemintheuniverse.com/">The Biggest Problem In The Universe</a></i> which is full of useful information, in addition to politically incorrect humour. It is hosted by two satirists <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maddox (writer)">Maddox</a> (George Ouzounian) and Dick Masterson (Dax Herrera) who bring in perceived problems with society and put them on a list. At the time of writing, the top problems are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism">Slacktivism</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation">epidemic of FGM</a>. The two things least likely to be considered a problem are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors">Tesla Motors</a> and Maddox himself.</p>
<p>Dick and Maddox regularly play voicemail from fans so I decided to contribute one three weeks ago. Just when I thought they had decided not to use it, I heard my own voice on the air when I listened to the end of <a href="http://thebiggestproblemintheuniverse.com/episode-45/">episode 45</a>. I left a voicemail mocking a self-righteous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality">pansexual</a> hoping that they would touch on this problem.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/pan-vs-bi" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/pan-vs-bi#commentspoliticsprotestTue, 31 Mar 2015 00:40:41 +0000root47 at http://www.smallperturbation.com2014 Cheekinesshttp://www.smallperturbation.com/2048-splurge
<p>Last year, I had two occassions to spend too much of the department's money within the same month. I would guess that the month was either March or April because I had just started playing <a href="http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/">2048</a>. And the 2048 craze happened after the Winter Olympics but before the World Cup. On that note I should pause to say that 2014 was a great year especially for a Canadian. I already can't wait until 2018.<br />
<center><img src="/sites/default/files/post_images/2015-01-03_high_2048_score.png" width="400" alt="A 2048 board showing the 4096 tile." /></center><br />
Anyway, the fun happened with prospective grad students who were considering UBC physics. During a visit like this, the department pays for a group of grad students to take the visitor out for lunch. With two of these emails that appeared, my reply was in the first batch.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/2048-splurge" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/2048-splurge#commentsmemesold newstuning performanceSat, 03 Jan 2015 07:04:05 +0000root46 at http://www.smallperturbation.comThank-You VLChttp://www.smallperturbation.com/wiki-bluray
<p>Something that caught me by surprise was the release of <a href="http://www.videolan.org/developers/libbdplus.html">libbdplus</a> which happened almost exactly one year ago. This filled a gap in the free software community that had been open since 2007 when the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD+">BD+</a> discs came out.</p>
<p>The story here is that Bluray discs won the format war against HD-DVD because they don't just encrypt their files with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS">AACS</a>. They include a diabolical piece of self-modifying code called BD+ which gained an early reputation for thwarting decryption efforts. For many years, open source <a href="http://www.videolan.org/developers/libbluray.html">Bluray</a> <a href="http://www.videolan.org/developers/libaacs.html">decryption</a> tools only existed for discs that were BD+ free. Those cracking tougher nuts had to use <a href="http://www.makemkv.com/">MakeMKV</a> and <a href="http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html">AnyDVD</a> which kept the source code hidden thereby making important knowledge vulnerable to censorship.</p>
<p>In 2009, when I first heard about VideoLAN's plan to develop libbdplus, the lack of a git repository was suspicious. Why would a group known for prompt code releases in all of their other projects suddenly decide to develop one behind closed doors? Especially the most anticipated advancement since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss">libdvdcss</a>. Years went by and rumours of an imminent release became less frequent. Not only that, but <a href="https://trac.assembla.com/bdplus/browser/trunk">other BD+ projects</a> ceased development because they saw no need to duplicate effort. By 2013, I was not just accusing the developers of changing their minds, but causing outright damage to free software in the process. The end of December 2013, when they released libbdplus after all, was the time for me to take it all back. But hey, it's Christmas... a time to be pleasantly surprised!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/wiki-bluray" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/wiki-bluray#commentsdevelgratitudeold newsprotestFri, 26 Dec 2014 04:01:11 +0000root45 at http://www.smallperturbation.comFun With Enforcershttp://www.smallperturbation.com/thunderbird-police
<p>I need to mention a fun thing that I did almost exactly when this site went offline. I signed up to volunteer in an <a href="http://riskmanagement.ubc.ca/June18">RCMP training exercise</a> scheduled for June 18, 2013. At the information session, the head of Risk Management UBC told us that one could either get up at 8am to play a regular hostage or get up at 6am to play a hostage wearing bullet hole makeup. I chose the former.<br />
<center><img src="/sites/default/files/post_images/2014-12-16_rcmp.jpg" width="600" alt="RCMP officers at UBC." /></center><br />
The RCMP officers tried to keep their techniques as secret as possible. I got this picture before the hostages went to their assigned buildings, but I didn't take any once I was inside. I don't think anyone else did either, for fear of being kicked out. The closest thing we have to a picture of the actual rescue comes from <a href="http://ubyssey.ca/news/photos-mock-emergency-ubc234/">an article</a> in <i>The Ubyssey</i>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/thunderbird-police" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/thunderbird-police#commentsdevelexample codeold newsWed, 17 Dec 2014 04:33:07 +0000root44 at http://www.smallperturbation.comThings That Shouldn't Get Wethttp://www.smallperturbation.com/paint-and-bikes
<table>
<tr>
<td><img src="/sites/default/files/post_images/2014-12-07_spidey.jpg" width="250" alt="A painting of Spider-Man that I made." /></td>
<td>
I started thinking about memorable events from the last year and came up with a painting session that people had at my residence. Actually two of them. At the first one, I painted Spider-Man, but it took such a long time that I didn't get to put anything in the background. Because of this, I suggested another painting session to the soon-to-be Residence Association President as he was campaigning door-to-door. I'm pretty sure they would've held one anyway. At the second one, I completed the scene by painting some upside-down buildings. Both events had a great turnout... probably because of the ample supply of paint, canvases and wine. I only have a picture of Spider-Man, but it was great to see what pictures other people came up with. When some one was painting a landscape, I said it looked like something by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)">Group of Seven</a>. This turned out to be true, since the guy said he had a painting by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Y._Jackson">A. Y. Jackson</a> in mind when he started it.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><a href="http://www.smallperturbation.com/paint-and-bikes" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.smallperturbation.com/paint-and-bikes#commentsmust seeold newsSun, 07 Dec 2014 18:38:03 +0000root43 at http://www.smallperturbation.com